We walk as high as we can reasonably go up the mountain each morning when our 1 year old wakes up at daylight. We have to do something with him, or he'll just whine annoyingly. So instead of watching videos or playing downstairs, I carry him on my back uphill and down to make it almost like exercising. My wife is 25 weeks pregnant, so it really is exercising for her.
The baby waves at the neighbors, plays with sticks, flowers, and fruit from the trees and sometimes sees things he's never seen before, like a frog hopping around that just delighted and astonished him yesterday. My wife teaches me her language as we walk.
It's the simplest thing, going on a walk for an hour, but I figure we get 3 or 4 hours of benefits for that 1 hour of time. We accomplish exercise, learning, socializing, fun, and family time all at once. I think this kind of thinking and approach is how we can really get the most out of our time and I am more and more reluctant to spend time and/or money on activities or material things that don't provide at least 2 benefits. If I drive somewhere in the minivan, I try my best to have two reasons. It surprised me to come to this next conclusion, but I can't see two benefits from a gym at this stage of my life, so that's now on the back burner indefinitely.
I'm not a Buddhist, but I came around to this way of thinking from a little bit of exposure to Buddhists and Buddhism some years ago and this is probably the closest thing to religious advice that I'd have to share.
Submitted May 10, 2017 at 09:56AM by dixiedownunder http://ift.tt/2q2QNeS
